Boyd Arms, Ballycastle

A three-storey former hotel of probable mid 18th-century construction (a painted sign on the gable has a date of 1761). In the public bar and snug are some Victorian or early 20th-century fittings. It is named after the Boyd family on whose land Ballycastle lies and who built the pub and other buildings in this part of town. They built the Boyds Arms Hotel for the holsters, coach-drivers, attendants and similar lower classes and for the gentry the Antrim Arms Hotel across the street.

The right-hand front door leads into a corridor with a red and yellow diamond-shaped quarry-tiled floor, old dado panelling painted cream, a couple of basic benches and narrow shelves for stand-up drinking. Don’t miss the indicator box in the corridor showing where service was required, including the five letting bedrooms.

The left-hand front door leads to a typical, simple Irish bar stretching back from the street. The old bar back consists of shelves with a mirrored back. The bar counter appears to be a replacement from the 1950s with its plain wood frontage and Formica top. The narrow room has more old dado panelling and some bench seating.

At the end of the counter there is a tiny snug created by partition walls that reach the ceiling, the one attached to the servery being fully glazed above the dado. It has a latch and plank door, two benches attached to the partition walls, a small table attached to the wall and a little hatch through which drinks can be served. The snug was popular on cattle fair days for private deals.

Across the corridor is another room but here the fittings including the Victorian-style fireplace are modern. The small room at the rear with a figure 2 over the doorway was refitted in 1998.

The pub and the town are incredibly busy on the days of Ould Lammas Fair, which dates from 1606 and is therefore one of Ireland’s oldest fairs. It falls on the last Tuesday of August but starts on a Sunday evening and runs all day Monday and Tuesday. It is now most famous for it's 'Dulse' - edible seaweed that has been collected from local shores and dried out and 'Yellow Man' - a yellow candy similar in texture to toffee and taste of honeycomb.